“The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.”
The French Revolution, Bk. V, ch. 4 (1794)
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Mary Wollstonecraft 44
British writer and philosopher 1759–1797Related quotes

Source: Constitutional Code; For the Use All Nations and All Governments Professing Liberal Opinions Volume 1

“All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.”

On the Hydrogen bomb in a minority addendum http://honors.umd.edu/HONR269J/archive/GACReport491030.html (co-authored with I. I. Rabi) to an official General Advisory Committee report for the Atomic Energy Commission (30 October 1949)
Context: Such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes. By its very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide. It is clear that the use of such a weapon cannot be justified on any ethical ground which gives a human being a certain individuality and dignity even if he happens to be a resident of an enemy country... The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light.